Shin Seiki Gaiden: Hakamairi
by GamerJay
Summary: Set during Shin Seiki: Joutei no Yokai Hoshi II. Huntress Gaun visits Yui "Straight Blade" Ikari's grave, with questions on her mind. Though she knows she will never be able to hear the answers to them.


_**A/N:**_ _Here's something that I was going to add to a future chapter, but instead turned into a side story. Timeframe: between Chapters 14 and 16 of Book 2: Hakaisha_

(SSJNYH)

Tokyo State Cemetery was located just barely within the city limits of Tokyo-03, built on a plateau of well-maintained green grass, the least that could be done for the hundreds of people fortunate to have been buried here post-Second Impact when half the human were snuffed out. Upon entering the cemetery one would be forgiven for thinking there were an infinite numbers grave markers as far as the eyes could. It would be fitting if it were taken into account the insurmountable amount of lives lost in the early years following 2000.

The tall, well-built yet feminine figure was briefly enveloped in static as it materialized itself from its cloaking field, approaching a specific grave marker in the seemingly large sea of graves surrounding her.

"…there's too many dead oomans here. This is no place for a Predator to be buried."

Gaun dropped her bio-mask onto the ground as she stood before a black tinted grave marker. 

**IKARI YUI  
** **碇ユイ**

 **1977 - 2004**

She understood the kanji better than the Roman lettering, not that she had to. She always wondered if oomans would be better off if they had just _one_ language instead of the myriads and myriads that were spoken throughout the earth. As adept as she was at understanding and speaking the languages known as 'Nippon-go' and 'English' it still frustrated her to keep learning new ones just to keep herself ahead of the prey.

Gaun shook her head to clear her thoughts, no longer able to keep putting this 'visit' off any longer. NERV's Second Branch laid across a great ocean and the oomans would be ferrying her and the others there soon enough. And on the off chance she would not survive this hunt she had to make her feelings known to the first person she ever truly loved.

Her daughter Straight Blade.

"Your _teacher_ …Fuyutsuki his name I think it was, he told me where your gravestone was. Just said 'gravestone', not where you were _buried_. I did not want to be around him long enough to deciper whatever ooman rhetoric he was passing my way.

"This is the only time I will ever visit you," Gaun stated. "And not because I might not return to this cursed Paya Amedha infested fortress alive, but…"

She swallowed.

"How? How could do _this_ to me? All this time… _he_ 's my _grandchild_?! You knew…I told you about my sire, how he _hated_ me so much he opened his own stomach rather than live with a bastard u'darahje I…" she sighed, shaking her head. "How did-?"

She scrunched her face in distaste.

"All you ever knew was being a _Hunter_ ," Gaun said. "I…I trained you myself, remember? And…and I find out you became a…a woman of science. The kind of science that pursues what the First Ones left behind. What they intended for the species they seeded to find so they would in but a few decades, less even, wipe themselves out." Gaun couldn't help but let out a strained chuckle, "The First Ones' egotism at its finest." She cleared her throat, "Shinji…Curved Blade…you forced this…the First Ones' legacy on _him_ : Y _our_ son, m _-_ my _grandchild_?

"All this time…raising him. I never would have guessed he was your own blood," she started blinking away the moisture forming in the corners of her eyes. "I _felt_ his suffering long before I…before I hurt him so many times to prepare him." She rubbed the eyes, "If I knew that you were the one responsible for it I…"

She downcast her eyes.

" _That_ day, I watched him you know? I was going to leave that ooman town when I realized I would never find you, that I finally gave you up for dead. But…I saw _**him**_." She paused, her breathing becoming erratic as her self-control started to crumble. "Saw that dead look in his eyes, that dead _ooman_ look. A look no ooman child should ever have. That kind of look one has when he has no one. How do I know that he was all alone in the universe?" her face scrunched up in anger. "I might as well have been staring at my own reflection.

"I shouldn't really complain about how I grew up. Elder Scrap Yard took care of me right up until he earned the title of the 'Mad Elder', and big brother Nam was there to teach me the Way of the Hunter. He probably suffered more than I did teaching a female how to be Hunter. But…it still _hurt_ , being rejected by everyone else. Hated because of my sire, because that vor'mektaviolated him and I sprung forth from such a horrific union and I-I…"

She scrunched her face in anger once she was finished feeling sorry for herself.

"I took you in," anger now laced her voice as she fell to her knees before the marker. "I pulled you out, bawling for your dead progenitors from that wreck and saved only you and not the _other_ one from a pitiful existence as ooman prey and _that_ was… _this_ is how you repay me? By sinking lower than _Gal'Vakir_ by forsaking your own pup?! Was it if your final wish for your mate _Gen-do_ to inflict further torment on him?"

She snarled at the mere thought of Gendo Ikari. Shinji's vengeance on him may turn out to be misplaced after all. Blame Gendo Ikari – the sire who abandoned him. Not Straight Bla…YUI Ikari – the bearer who abandoned the _both_ of them.

"Why did you do it? To your own blood? Was it to spite me for leaving you? Leaving you with oomans that would help you more than I could have. Did you hate me _that much_ you took it out on your own son, your own blood?! Answer me. Answer me, you ungrateful _proug'nik_ __I order you!"

Gaun snarled as she gripped the gravestone with both hand and feeling it crack underneath her strength. "Rise up and justify why you betrayed Curved Blade, betrayed _me!_ " Angry tears began to form in her eyes. "Can your damned ooman science bring you back?! Answer me. Answer me damn you!"

Suddenly her mandibles were spread and she was bellowing in rage, the gravestone visibly crumbling underneath her grip, the stone cutting into her hands and drawing green blood and she wailed in pain , the physical and _emotional_ kind.

" **ANSWER** _ **ME**_ **!"**

She then collapsed before the grave, pieces of the gravestone in her bloodied palms. The Huntress laid there sobbing as she forced herself away from the gravestone and sat on the grass. She stared at the now wrecked gravestone, the name Yui Ikari still legible upon on the stone. She was crying now, tears running down her cheeks as she bowed her head, hands covering her face and smearing herself with her green blood.

"I…I…I didn't mean to-" she sniffed. "Those things I just said, I-"

She erupted into tears more tears.

"I-I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Gaun cried, digging her fingers into the earth. She continued sobbing, "I-I don't know why you did it, I don't know what you had to gain doing that to your son…to _my_ son. Why you left him all _alone_. I want to blame myself, because I left you _here_ …but you were going to die. I didn't know what else to do, I…I…it's all some vicious cycle – my sire killed himself because I reminded him of the _worst_ days of his life, and you killed yourself because…I-I don't know why you…I…I-I can't-please…I don't know _why_! At least tell me why you made him _watch_!"

She paused to catch her breath and to wipe her face, but the tears still ran.

"Other Hunters were convinced being Predator was the reason I found for living, but it was _you_. It was _all_ you: the first person I ever truly loved," She forced to pause so she can take a breath. "I hurt so many people I loved after you were gone – I hurt Merl'we and Nam, I forced them apart. I hated myself and I took it out on everyone. Most of all…"

The sounds of her hand striking Merl'we echoed in her mind.

"When I knew that you had to have been dead I wanted to follow you. And if you were not where all Predators go to when they pass when I found you, I'll find my _wherever_ oomans go and bring you with me to meet the Black Hunter Cetanu himself."

She paused, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"I love you, Straight Blade," Gaun sniffed. "In spite of everything I'll always love you, daughter. But I have to _save_ my grandchild…my _son_ , I have to save him from this path you put on him. I don't know how I'll do it, but I'll find a _way_. He deserves better than what you left him with. He deserved better than you."

She closed her eyes, morose.

"He deserves better than _me_. And I will give him _everything_ that you should have. My life is _his,_ and if he ever asked I would give it up for him." One last sniff, she exhaled and her tone suddenly became resolute. "But not like how _you_ gave up your life."

Gaun reached for her mask and put it back on as she stood back up.

"He'll never know your _true_ name, _Yui Ikari_ ," Gaun said, no trace of emotion could be felt in her tone of voice. "As far as he knows – you bore him, you loved him and you were taken from him against your will. He only knows that _Straight Blade_ was my previous apprentice and not…his _sister._ I will not hurt him anymore than I already have."

She narrowed her eyes at the grave marker, then at her bloodied hand where a bit of marble was stuck in it. She didn't even wince as she pulled it out and dropped it on the grass.

"Straight Blade is dead, and Yui Ikari died sometime after. That is the _truth_ of the matter."

Gaun bowed her head towards the grave marker and turned away, activating her cloak as she made her way out of the cemetery; which she had to guess had to have been mostly the victims of the _Cataclysm_. And somewhere in the back of her mind she hoped that Yui wasn't somehow involved in plunging humanity into the hell that was post-Second Impact Earth and responsible for the marker stones all around her.

She gave one last look over her shoulder at Yui "Straight Blade" Ikari's grave before continuing on her way.

(SSJNYH)

 _ **U'darahje**_ _\- Abomination  
_ _ **Vor'mekta**_ \- _Stalker_

 _ **A/N:**_ _Finally managed to get hold of the last volume of the Evangelion manga – the one written and drawn by Sadamoto I mean. And I really wanted to express what I think of Yui Ikari and who better than through Gaun, her 'mother.'_

 _Special thanks to_ _ **RealRemainder**_ _for proofreading and suggesting the title. And to_ _ **Devil Boss**_ _for his fan fic_ _ **Vengeance,**_ _which made me realize who the real bad guy of Evangelion is._

 _Not that she intended to be the bad guy, but…yeah…_


End file.
